liberal fail!

More Evidence, that the Wind Industry is in it’s Death Throes!

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Infigen Signals Its Own Demise – as the RET Review Panel Gets to Work

May 18, 2014 by 

whitteflag

Infigen is an all-wind-power-outfit that used to be called Babcock and Brown – which collapsed spectacularly in 2009 – taking $10 billion of investors’ and creditors’ money with it on the way out (see this story). The way things are headed – get set for a replay.

Infigen is bleeding cash (it backed up a $55 million loss in 2011/12 with an $80 million loss, last financial year). It’s been scrambling to get development approvals for all of its projects so they can be flogged off ASAP and the cash used to ward off the receiver. But, in the current climate, its chances of finding buyers are slimmer than a German supermodel.

With the RET Review Panel odds-on favourites to recommend that the mandatory Renewable Energy Target be scrapped altogether, Infigen are in more trouble than Ned Kelly was at Glenrowan. And they know it.

In an extraordinary move, the boys from Infigen have hit the media pleading for mercy – hectoring and attempting to bully the government, in a last ditch effort to save their skins.

STT puts their hysterical language down to the fact that they’re just working their way through the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

In this ABC radio interview Infigen’s Miles “Boy” George appears to be grappling with “anger” (stage 2); while engaging in a curious form of “bargaining” (stage 3); and coming to grips with mounting “depression” (stage 4).

Budget 2014: Clean energy bodies call for compensation as Government cuts green funding
ABC (Radio Australia)
Jake Sturmer, Alex McDonald
16 May 2014

Clean energy industry representatives have slammed federal budget cuts in the sector, calling for compensation if legislation is changed.

The Federal Government has taken the sword to renewable energy, cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from various green programs.

“I think it’s a very depressing message for the industry and for the investors in it,” said Miles George, head of the country’s largest renewable energy provider, Infigen.

Among the changes is a decision to spread the Government’s $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund (direct action policy) over 10 years rather than four.

Funding for research into carbon capture and storage has also been targeted and will lose $460 million over three years, and a $100 million program to roll out solar energy systems in 25 towns and 100 schools has been slashed to $2.1 million over three years.

Other clean technology programs face a $44.7 million cut.

Last year the Government was promising hefty rebates to help install one million rooftop solar systems at a cost of $500 million. That commitment has also been dumped.

The $2.5 billion Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will also be absorbed by the industry department – saving the budget $1.3 billion.

“If we actually throw away options, a fear for me is that the energy mix that we currently have just gets ossified,” said ARENA chairman Greg Bourne.

“Infrastructure is hospitals, infrastructure is schools, but infrastructure is also the energy system that you have within a country and without the energy system, your overall system begins to grind to a halt.”

Mr Bourne says the current reliance on traditional energy sources is “not fit for purpose in this century”.

The last significant piece of green energy legislation, the Renewable Energy Target (RET), is currently under review.

After investing billions in the sector, Mr George warns any changes would be a breach of faith.

“If the legislation is now to be changed we would expect to be fully compensated,” he said.

“If [they] took the RET away tomorrow … we would lose 40 per cent of our revenue and our Australian business would fail … along with nearly all wind farms and wind farm businesses in Australia.”

Mr George says Infigen has made investments over the past 10 years on the basis of legislation that had “bi-partisan support”.

“If the legislation is now to be changed retrospectively and that has a negative effect on our business, we would expect to be fully compensated,” he said.

“This is the way Australia does it. Australia does not wreck existing legislation without compensation.”

The Environment Minister declined an interview but maintains that tough decisions needed to be made in the current economic climate.
ABC (Radio Australia)

As head barracker for the soon to be extinct ARENA fund – and with the plug about to be pulled on his cushy, highly paid job – we wouldn’t expect to hear anything but panicked twaddle from Greg Bourne. And he doesn’t disappoint.

We just love Greg’s hilarious claim that traditional energy sources are “not fit for purpose in this century”. Now Greg can’t have been paying attention to happenings in Australia’s energy market, at all.

The ONLY energy source that has proven itself “not fit for purpose” is wind power: insanely expensive; delivered at crazy, random intervals; and which has demonstrably failed to reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector, simply because it can never be supplied on-demand (see our posts here and here and here and here and here and here). It’s the last point which is the only possible justification for the enormous stream of subsidies filched from Australian power consumers – but the wind industry and its parasites are yet to produce a shred of credible evidence that wind power has reduced CO2 emissions in the electricity sector.

With such a tenuous grip on the realities of Australia’s energy market, it’s little wonder that Bourne and his beloved ARENA fund have been given the axe. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

And speaking of tenuous grips on reality, we couldn’t help but giggle at Miles George’s claim that Infigen is “the country’s largest renewable energy provider” – which will come as quite a surprise to Snowy Hydro Limited, which operates the Snowy Hydro Scheme.

True it is that Infigen is a “big player” in Australia’s wind industry. Infigen operates 6 wind farms in Australia, with a total installed capacity of 556 MW. That represents about 18% of Australia’s total installed wind power capacity of 3,080 MW.  But for Miles to call his little outfit Australia’s largest renewable energy provider is a monstrous stretch.

The Snowy Hydro Scheme was the first major renewable energy producer in Australia – and remains the largest, by a country mile.  Infigen’s piddling 556 MW of installed wind farm capacity hardly compares with Snowy Hydro’s 3,950 MW. And even then, that’s to compare a pig’s ear with a silk purse.

The one critical and colossal difference between Infigen’s ageing fleet of giant fans and the Snowy Hydro Scheme, is that the former are lucky to deliver any power at all, on any given day (see our post here); whereas, the latter delivers truly clean, cheap, reliable power – at any time, of any day – and whenever there’s a demand for it.

Not only does young Miles have a deluded view of Infigen’s importance in the renewable energy sector, he clearly hasn’t read the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000.

To reduce or scrap the mandatory RET, the coalition does not need tochange the legislation retrospectively, as Miles moans. The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act itself makes it clear that the Government can increase or decrease the mandatory target (by any margin it chooses) every two years, at will. For Miles’ benefit, here’s s162 which says:

Periodic reviews of operation of renewable energy legislation

(1) The Climate Change Authority must conduct reviews of the following:
(a) the operation of this Act and the scheme constituted by this Act;
(b) the operation of the regulations;
(c) the operation of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Large-scale Generation Shortfall Charge) Act 2000;
(d) the operation of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Small-scale Technology Shortfall Charge) Act 2010;
(e) the diversity of renewable energy access to the scheme constituted by this Act, to be considered with reference to a cost benefit analysis of the environmental and economic impact of that access.

Public consultation

(2) In conducting a review, the Climate Change Authority must make provision for public consultation.

Report

(3) The Climate Change Authority must:
(a) give the Minister a report of the review; and
(b) as soon as practicable after giving the report to the Minister, publish the report on the Climate Change Authority’s website.
(4) The Minister must cause copies of a report under subsection (3) to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the review is completed.

First review

(5) The first review under subsection (1) must be completed before the end of 31 December 2012.

Subsequent reviews

(6) Each subsequent review under subsection (1) must be completed within 2 years after the deadline for completion of the previous review.
(7) For the purposes of subsections (4), (5) and (6), a review is completed when the report of the review is given to the Minister under subsection (3).

Recommendations

(8) A report of a review under subsection (1) may set out recommendations to the Commonwealth Government.
(9) In formulating a recommendation that the Commonwealth Government should take particular action, the Climate Change Authority must analyse the costs and benefits of that action.
(10) Subsection (9) does not prevent the Climate Change Authority from taking other matters into account in formulating a recommendation.
(11) A recommendation must not be inconsistent with the objects of this Act.
(12) If a report of a review under subsection (1) sets out one or more recommendations to the Commonwealth Government, the report must set out the Climate Change Authority’s reasons for those recommendations.

Government response to recommendations

(13) If a report of a review under subsection (1) sets out one or more recommendations to the Commonwealth Government:
(a) as soon as practicable after receiving the report, the Minister must cause to be prepared a statement setting out the Commonwealth Government’s response to each of the recommendations; and
(b) within 6 months after receiving the report, the Minister must cause copies of the statement to be tabled in each House of the Parliament.
(14) The Commonwealth Government’s response to the recommendations may have regard to the views of the following:
(a) the Climate Change Authority;
(b) the Regulator;
(c) such other persons as the Minister considers relevant.

Well, that couldn’t be much clearer.

The Act itself provides that reviews of the mandatory RET must take place every two years; taking into account the cost and benefits of any recommendation made, as part of the review. There is nothing in that section to suggest that the government is bound to maintain any particular figure for the mandatory RET; or to accept assertions by the wind industry that the “benefits” of wind power outweigh its “costs”. Indeed, the section is entirely to the contrary.

By reference to that section, the RET Review Panel would be completely within its rights to recommend that the mandatory RET be scrapped in its entirety; simply because the demonstrated and extraordinary costs of wind power (the key beneficiary of the RET) completely outweighs any of its purported benefits.

Moreover, as the wind industry simply cannot provide any credible evidence that wind power satisfies the key objective of the Act – namely, actually reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the electricity sector (see s3) – then a recommendation to substantially wind back or scrap the RET would not be inconsistent with the objects of the Act (see s162(11) above).

Such a recommendation is absolutely on the cards – and the Coalition is itching to implement it.

The next furphy pitched up by Miles is that there is some sort of “culture of compensation” in Australia; which requires companies benefiting from industry subsidy schemes to be compensated – in full – should that scheme be wound back or scrapped.

This may come as a disappointment to Infigen, but there is no such “culture” in Australia; nor, more importantly, is it the law.

Back in the late 1980s, the Commonwealth government amended tax legislation to provide huge tax benefits for investments in “Managed Investment Schemes”. During the late 1990s and 2000s, the tax change saw a flood of money pour into industrial scale vineyards; timber, olive and almond plantations. The MIS tax breaks were rightly considered amonstrous tax rort that allowed companies running Managed Investment Schemes to make obscene profits upfront at investors’ ultimate expense. In 2007, the government scrapped the tax breaks – a decision which led to enormous corporate collapses of MIS outfits – like Timbercorp andGreat Southern Plantations – with MIS investors collectively losing 100s of $millions. Thousands of MIS investors lost their shirts, but none of them received a cent in compensation from the Commonwealth; nor, quite obviously, did the dozens of MIS companies that went bust. So no evidence of a “culture of compensation” there, Miles.

As to the law, Infigen does not have a contract with the Commonwealth government to supply wind power at guaranteed rates – or in exchange for Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs); it is nothing more than the beneficiary of the mandatory RET and the RECs issued under it.

An outfit called Australian Woollen Mills Pty Ltd took on the Commonwealth chasing “lost” subsidies, taking their case all the way to the High Court.

In 1946, the government announced it would pay a subsidy to manufacturers of wool who purchased and used it for local manufacture, after 30 June 1946. Australian Woollen Mills purchased and used wool for local manufacture between 1946-48; and received some payments under the scheme. The government subsequently stopped its subsidy scheme and Australian Woollen Mills sued the government for the subsidies it claimed it was due.

In 1954, the High Court dismissed Australian Woollen Mills’ claim that the offer to provide subsidies amounted to a contract between it and the government (on the ground that there was no consideration for the “promise” to provide the subsidies); and also concluded that there was no intention on the part of the government to create legal relations. The High Court held that the subsidy scheme was nothing more than a government scheme to promote industry; and, as such, there was no legal basis for Australian Woollen Mills to recover the subsidies promised (but not paid) under the scheme.

And so it is with the mandatory RET/REC scheme. If Infigen are out to overturn a High Court decision – which has been routinely applied for 60 years – we wish them the best of luck. They’ll need it.

Which brings us to our final observation on Infigen’s declaration of surrender.

We think Miles has understated Infigen’s potential losses if the mandatory RET is substantially reduced or scrapped in its entirety, when he talks about a 40% reduction in revenue.

STT thinks that – in the event the mandatory RET is substantially reduced or scrapped outright – Infigen will need to declare itself insolvent, there and then. The retailers with which it has Power Purchase Agreements are hardly likely to consider themselves bound by those agreements; as the Renewable Energy Certificates they receive as part of the deal would instantly collapse in value – and may well become worthless.

As night follows day – faced with mounting losses due to a collapse in the REC price – those retailers will seek to avoid any ongoing obligations to Infigen under those agreements – whether by reference to the terms of their agreements; or under the doctrine of contractual “frustration”. Thatwell-settled doctrine allows a court to release the parties from their obligations to continue to perform a contract where – through no fault of their own – a supervening event renders performance of the contract something fundamentally different from that anticipated by the parties.

So, if Infigen is looking for compensation for “losses” suffered if the RET is scrapped, it’s unlikely to get any joy from a Coalition government facing a voter backlash for bringing an end to the “age of entitlement” in its first budget. And it may end up in a position where its retail customers have torn up their PPAs, leaving it at the mercy of its mounting list of creditors.

Meanwhile – back in the real world – real businesses that employ thousands have hit the RET Review Panel with submissions detailing the real jobs that will inevitably be lost, unless the RET gets the axe now. Here’s The Australian on the risk created by the RET to Australia’s real economy.

Smelter pleading for concessions on Renewable Energy Target
The Australian
Annabel Hepworth, Matthew Denholm
17 May 2014

THE Coalition faces fresh pressure over the Renewable Energy Target as an aluminium smelter warns it could have to sack workers without major changes to the scheme and a key regulator warns that it is hitting consumers with “unnecessary and avoidable” costs.

In a submission to the RET review panel headed by businessman Dick Warburton, the NSW IPART says renewable energy has a “relatively high cost” compared with the Coalition’s proposed emissions reduction fund and existing carbon price.

The RET added about $107 to a typical electricity bill in NSW in 2013-14, but “these costs are unnecessary and avoidable if the same amount of emissions reduction can be achieved through less expensive means,” IPART chairman Peter Boxall says in the submission.

It comes as Tasmania’s Bell Bay aluminium smelter warns it will have to sack workers unless trade-exposed manufacturers are granted a full exemption from the imposts of the scheme.

Owners Pacific Aluminium yesterday said the southern hemisphere’s first smelter, in Tasmania’s north, had lost $48m in extra energy costs under the RET since it started in 2001.

Bell Bay Aluminium general manager Ray Mostogl said that Australia’s aluminium industry already faced “unprecedented challenges to its immediate viability” linked to depressed aluminium prices and the high Australian dollar.
The Australian

Bell Bay Aluminium employs close to 500 people; produces around 190,000 tonnes of aluminium annually; and has been at it since 1955.

Dick Warburton and his colleagues on the RET Review Panel are acutely aware of the negative cost impact that the mandatory RET is having on real businesses – like Bell Bay Aluminium and thousands of other energy intensive businesses, including Australia’s manufacturing sector.

There can be no justification for the retention of an insanely expensive and utterly ineffective subsidy scheme, which has done nothing more than prop up profligate, corporate cowboys like Infigen.

The mandatory Renewable Energy Target must go now.

dick-warburton

 

 

 

Listen to the Noise that these Wind Turbines Make….

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Wind Turbine Noise: A “Psychopath’s Symphony”

May 17, 2014 by 
Jack Nicholson In Australia, at the very beginning of our great-fan-fiasco, the wind industry threw a mountain of cash at their tame acoustic consultants to have them write the ludicrously lax noise “standards” that are meant to be “applied” to wind farms. These are the “standards” that are used by corrupt State governments (and their rotten little EPAs and Planning Departments) to claim (among other things) that wind turbine noise is like listening to a fridge 500m away. These same “standards” – like the South Australia’s EPA’s wind farm noise guidelines (written by wind industry pets, Sonus) – claim that “modern” wind turbines do not generate infra-sound, at all. After years of complaints from long-suffering Waterloo locals, SA’s EPA finally did some testing and, low and behold, found Energy Australia’s 37 3MW Vestas V90s were generating infra-sound. Well, bugger me! Isn’t it just amazing what you’ll find when you bother to look? Even then, the EPA’s “study” was slammed by highly respected acoustics and vibration expert, Professor Colin Hansen as the work of bumbling incompetents. Not only did the wind industry throw buckets of cash at acoustic consultants to set up noise standards you can drive a bus through, it also had them act as spin doctors – running the “fridge at 500m” furphy; producing completely bogus wind turbine noise “studies”,  and running pitches that listening to wind turbine noise is just like listening to waves lapping on a moonlit beach. STT, however, begs to differ. We think the incessant, low-rumbling of the gearbox and generator – combined with the roaring, thumping, air-tearing-blade noise is a “Psychopath’s Symphony” – “music” composed by monsters – that only the completely deranged could ever profess to enjoy – or compare to a stroll on the beach. But don’t just take our word for it – cop an earful of the “music” that accompanies this video selection and see what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78QwBM_AD3s
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr3z_7iQ35s

Wind Power Never Became Competitive! It’s on the way OUT!!!

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Why It’s The End Of The Line For Wind Power

English: Bar graph of the wind power generatio...

It’s the end of the world as we know it. That’s what the U.S. wind power industry is saying to itself these days. And they aren’t talking about some Mayan doomsday nonsense.

On Jan. 1 the federal production tax credit on wind investments expires. For the past 20 years the credit has offset about 30% of the cost of building wind turbines. Add to that the “renewable portfolio standards” for green energy mandated by 29 states, and as a result we’ve seen wind farms spring up across the country. Since 2007 nearly 40% of all the new electricity capacity built in this country has been wind. Wind now generates roughly 3.5% of U.S. electricity.

 Don’t expect wind’s share to climb beyond that level any time soon. The end of the tax credit could very well mean the end of the wind industry.

According to the federal Energy Information Administration, the “levelized cost” of new wind power (including capital and operating costs) is 8.2 cents per kWh. Advanced clean-coal plants cost about 11 cents per kWh, the same as nuclear. But advanced natural gas-burning plants come in at just 6.3 cents per kWh.

But it could be getting a lot worse for wind. A fascinating new report by George Taylor and Tom Tanton at the American Tradition Institute called “The Hidden Costs of Wind Electricity” asserts that the cost of wind power is significantly understated by the EIA’s numbers. In fact, says Taylor, generating electricity from wind costs triple what it does from natural gas.

That’s because the numbers from the EIA and wind boosters fail to take into account a host of infrastructure and transmission costs.

First off — the windiest places are more often far away from where electricity is needed most, so the costs of building transmission lines is high. So far many wind projects have been able to patch into existing grid interconnections. But, says Taylor, those opportunities are shrinking, and material expansion of wind would require big power line investments.

Second, the wind doesn’t blow all the time, so power utilities have found that in order to balance out the variable load from wind they have to invest in keeping fossil-fuel-burning plants on standby. When those plants are not running at full capacity they are not as efficient. Most calculations of the cost of wind power do not take into account the costs per kWh of keeping fossil plants on standby or running at reduced loads. But they should, because it is a real cost of adding clean, green, wind power to the grid.

Taylor has crunched the numbers and determined that these elements mean the true cost of wind power is more like double the advertised numbers.

He explains that he started with 8.2 cents per kWh, reflecting total installation costs of $2,000 per kw of capacity. Then backed out an assumed 30-year lifespan for the turbines (optimistic), which increases the cost to 9.3 cents per kwh. Then after backing out the effect of subsidies allowing accelerted depreciation for wind investments you get 10.1 cents. Next, add the costs of keeping gas-fired plants available, but running at reduced capacity, to balance the variable performance of wind — 1.7 cents. Extra fuel for those plants adds another 0.6 cents. Finally, tack on 2.7 cents for new transmission line investments needed to get new wind power to market. The whole shebang adds up to 15 cents per kwh.

Ouch.

As Taylor figures it, natural gas would need to cost upwards of $20 per mmBTU before gas-fired power would cost as much as wind.

Granted, the American Tradition Institute is a right-wing nonprofit that in the past has railed against climate scientists and sought to discredit Global Warming fear mongering. That doesn’t mean Taylor’s calculations are wrong, just that everyone on the pro-wind side ought to read the report and chime in with their critiques.

The American Wind Energy Association says that the wind sector employs 37,000 and boasts 500 factories building components. Even with new anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese makers of wind turbines, the AWEA says that if Congress fails to extend the production tax credit for wind, many of those jobs could be eliminated and factories closed in early 2013. That’s how important these tax credits are to wind’s viability.

Taylor and Tanton figure that at the current price of natural gas, and before counting any subsidies or transmission costs, ratepayers are paying about $8.5 billion more this year for electricity from wind than they would have paid if it were gas-fired power. That amount doesn’t even include the cost of the direct federal subsidies.

What’s more, ratepayers will have to shoulder that cost for as long as the turbines are in operation. That’s $8.5 billion a year that ratepayers are forking over to subsidize a less efficient, more expensive technology; $8.5 billion that could otherwise be invested in natural gas electricity, or better yet, nuclear.

Just think, in South Carolina, power company Scana and its partners are investing about $11 billion to construct two 1,100 mw nuclear reactors on roughly 1,000 acres. To get the same amount of electricity out of wind (remember that turbines operate at an average of less than 50% capacity because of wind’s intermittancy) and you’d need more than 1,700 turbines stretched across 200,000 acres, for an upfront investment of $8.8 billion. The nukes might cost more upfront, but they last longer, they provide reliable base load power and they emit zero carbon.

The wind lobby has proposed that congress extend the tax credits, then gradually phase them out over 6 years. This could happen, but the plan has its antagonists. Senator Lamar Alexander (R.-TN) said in a floor speech last week: “This government in Washington, D.C. is borrowing 42 cents out of every dollar we spend. That is why I come to the floor to point out a proposal that has been made to fleece the taxpayers out of an additional $50 billion over the next 6 years. This is a proposal that is as brazen as a mid-day bank robbery on Main Street. It is a proposal by the wind developers of America to say to the taxpayers: ‘Please give us $50 billion or so more dollars over the next 6 years to phase out the federal taxpayer subsidy for wind power.’”

Natural gas power plants do not require any kind of taxpayer subsidies. Gas is plentiful, and it’s far “greener” than the coal-burning plants that are being phased out every day. Wind has a place in the generation mix, and if consumers are willing to pay through the nose for 100% wind power, then they should be free to do so. But it’s hard to justify wasting more taxpayer dollars propping up a technology that has had more than a decade to establish itself and yet still can’t stand on its own.

The “Agenda” Behind Climate Hysteria”!

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What’s the Real ‘Climate Change’ Agenda?

A Perfect Storm for an End Run on Liberty

By Mark Alexander 

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.” –Patrick Henry (1778)

We’re nearing the hot season in the Northern Hemisphere and, predictably, that means the Left’s alarmist “global warming” rhetoric is heating up. Never mind that most weather forecasts beyond 72 hours are largely speculative; these purveyors of hot gas believe we should accept their inviolable 100-year forecast.

Ahead of this year’s midterm elections, amid the plethora of its domestic and foreign policy failures, the Democrat Party has chosen to make their “climate change” fear and fright campaign an electoral centerpiece. Their strategy is to rally the most liberal cadres of Al Gore’s cult of Gorons, whose religious zeal toward “global warming” is fanatical. Unfortunately, for the rest of America, most who occupy this Leftist constituency are no longer capable of distinguishing fact from fiction.

Though the climate alarmists of the 1970s were driven by rhetoric over the coming ice age, the current climate calamity is one of global warming. But the question about climate isn’t if the weather is varying but why it is varying.

And the answer to that question is far less complicated than the “climate change” agenda, which is not about the weather, but about a political strategy to subjugate free enterprise under statist regulation – de facto socialism, under the aegis of “saving us from ourselves.”

The climate is always changing relative to complex short- and long-term climate cycles, so “climate change” is a superbly safe political “cause célèbre” – sort of like “heads we win, tails you lose.” So, declarations like Barack Obama’s 2014 State of the Union warning – “The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact” – fall into the “keen sense of the obvious” category.

In April, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change released a synopsis ofthousands of climate studies, which contradict the conventional “global warming assumptions.” According to the Cato Institute’s Roger Pilon, “We are now at 17 years and eight months of no global warming.”

Not to be outdone by the NIPCC, however, the Obama administration released its own 800-page apocalyptic National Climate Assessment last week, with such erudite conclusions as, “[W]e know with increasing certainty that climate change is happening now.”

I “know” with more than “increasing certainty” that every time I walk outside, I can detect climate change, and this ever-changing condition is better known as “weather.”

Despite the hot hype, Jason Furman, chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, the week before Obama trotted out his climate assessment, had this to say about sluggish first quarter economic growth: “The first quarter of 2014 was marked by unusually severe winter weather.”

Global cooling? That’s right, economic stagnation is not the result of failed “economic recovery” policies but “unusually severe winter weather.”

Obama’s minister of propaganda, Jay Carney, followed with this explanation: “We had historically severe winter weather which temporarily lowered growth in the first quarter … in other words, a reduction of 1 to 1.5% in GDP as a result of what was historically severe weather, one of the coldest winters on record, the greatest number of snowstorms on record.”

After the White House climate assessment was released, Carney was challenged about the disparity between “historically severe winter weather” and global warming, and responded, “The impacts of climate change on weather are severe in both directions.”

Well there you go – climate change is the default explanation for hot and cold weather.

It was no small irony that last week, Obama chose to promote his administration’s “green agenda” with Walmart as a backdrop – ironic given that most of Walmart’s products are produced in China and other third-world nations, the biggest land, water and atmospheric polluters on the planet.

To that end, columnist Charles Krauthammer notes, “We have reduced our carbon dioxide emission since 1996 more than any other country in the world, and, yet, world emissions have risen. Why? We don’t control the other 96% of humanity. We can pass all the laws we want. We can stop all economic activity and take cold showers for the next 100 years, it will not change anything if India and China are opening a new coal plant every week.”

I would suggest to Charles that it’s called “global climate” because it is not “local climate,” even if China and India reduced their CO2 emissions it would not stop “climate change.”

Further, the administration’s report claims that “climate disruption” has resulted in a global temperature rise of 1.3 to 1.9 degrees since 1895 – and it is no coincidence that the report cherry-picked that starting date because 1890 is recognized as the end of the 300-year “Little Ice Age” global cooling period.

For the record, estimates of the minuscule temperature fluctuation over the last century, if correct, would explain why White House science adviser John Holdren has abandoned the term “global warming,” opting instead for the more ambiguous and all-encompassing phrase “global climate disruption.”

Fact is, we “disrupt” the global climate every time we exhale.

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Such linguistic obfuscations would make the old Soviet Dezinformatsia Bureau proud! Of course, the Obama administration has mastered the art of the “BIG Lie” from the top down. (Think about it: Would you buy a used car from any of them?)

However, even the Left’s cherished United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that there “is limited evidence of changes in [weather] extremes associated with other climate variables since the mid-20th century.”

And, regarding the objectivity of all those erudite “climate change” scientists, columnist George Will observed, “There is a sociology of science. Scientists are not saints in white laboratory smocks. They have got interests like everybody else. If you want a tenure-track position in academia, don’t question the reigning orthodoxy on climate change. If you want money from the biggest source of direct research in this country, the federal government, don’t question its orthodoxy. If you want to get along with your peers, conform to peer pressure. This is what’s happening.”

Krauthammer added, “All physicists were once convinced that space and time were fixed until Einstein, working in a patent office, wrote a paper in which he showed that they are not. I’m not impressed by numbers. I’m not impressed by consensus.”

As for those of us who can distinguish betweenfact, fiction and political endgames, and are most decidedly not among Obama’s legions of pantywaist bed-wetters, he unilaterally suspends the revered scientific method and accuses us of “wasting everybody’s time on a settled debate – climate change is a fact. … Climate change is not some far-off problem in the future. It’s happening now. It’s causing hardship now.”

This week, you can expect to hear the Leftmedia trumpet some Antarctic ice melt, but you haven’t heard much about the record ice pack in the Arctic, which is threatening Al Gore’s once-marooned polar bear population, because the ice is too thick for the bears to reach their primary food source, seals.

Let me repeat myself: The climate hype is notabout the weather, but about a political strategy to subjugate free enterprise under statist regulation – de facto socialism, under the aegis of “saving us from ourselves.”

Indeed, Obama’s economic policies and regulations have already moved our nation rapidly toward the brink of statist totalitarianism.

And there was more evidence this week of Obama’s reckless strategy to subjugate our economy and by extension, our national security, to his “climate change” agenda.

Adding to his “War on Coal,” Obama has ratcheted up his War on Energy Independence, not only refusing to complete the Keystone XL pipeline but now going after alternative oil exploration methods by implementing new fracking disclosure rules. On top of that, he is undermining alternate transportation options for oil in the absence of Keystone XL with new regulations for trains transporting oil, and specifications for rail cars. Oh, did I mention Obama’s regulatory obstacles to constructing new refineries despite the fact that our current refinement capacity is approaching its limit?

How does this all add up?

According to columnist Terence Jeffrey, “Ultimately, it will not matter if people in government cynically promote the theory that human activity is destroying the global climate as a means of taking control of your life, or if they take control of your life because they sincerely believe human activity is destroying the global climate. Either way, government will control of your life. … In a nation where government can de-develop the economy, stop population growth and redistribute wealth both inside and outside its borders, there will still be droughts, floods and hot summer nights. But there will be no freedom.” 
In his 1735 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack, Benjamin Franklin observed, “Some are weatherwise, some are otherwise.” While the Left promotes its agenda as “weatherwise” and its detractors as “deniers,” fact is, they are otherwise.

Oh, wait, my bad. “The debate is settled.”

High Energy Costs Destroying Ontario’s Economic Growth

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ONTARIO’S GREEN ENERGY ACT LIMITS ECONOMIC

GROWTH THROUGH RISING ENERGY COSTS

Policies that raise energy costs limit economic growth

Ross McKitrick — Fraser Institute — May 15, 2014

TORONTO—Limiting the availability and raising the cost of energy can hurt Canada’s overall economy and weaken future growth, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

The study, Energy Abundance and Economic Growth, examines the long-term relationship between economic growth, energy availability and energy consumption with evidence from Canada and around the world.

“Energy use and economic output grow together over time, and the evidence shows that if you limit energy use you damage future economic growth prospects,” said Ross McKitrick, study co-author, Fraser Institute senior fellow, and economics professor at the University of Guelph.

Since 1980, notes the study, Canada’s energy use grew by about 50 per cent while Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) doubled. During that same period, global energy use almost doubled while global economic output increased six-fold. Evidence from around the world indicates that energy use triggers growth and is not simply a by-product of growth.

So what does this mean for policy-makers?

Because the best available evidence suggests that promoting energy abundance helps sustain strong economic growth, policies that deliberately increase energy costs will likely have negative economic consequences now and in the future.

“It’s obvious—energy drives economic growth. Yet policy-makers across Canada continue to treat energy consumption as a bad thing, and act as though cutting energy use is an end in itself. They need to understand the long-term costs of this thinking,” McKitrick said.

For example, policies that increase energy costs or limit its availability (i.e. renewable energy mandates or the required use of biofuels such as ethanol or biodiesel) diminish competitiveness, reduce rates of return on investment, and reduce economic growth. Moreover, conservation mandates and strict appliance standards (i.e. water heaters, refrigerators) often have no conceivable environmental benefit but are justified simply because they cut energy use.

“The Ontario government, for instance, claims that the Green Energy Act, which increases energy costs, thereby making it less abundant, is part of the province’s economic growth strategy. The evidence points in the opposite direction—the Act will limit future economic growth,” McKitrick said.

saving money

More Liberal Lies….by Kathleen Wynne!

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Liberals have learned from their mistakes: Wynne

By Patrick Bales

Thursday, May 15, 2014 4:14:39 EDT PM

Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne gives her prepared remarks during a campaign stop in Walkerton, Ont., on Thursday, May 15, 2014.

Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne gives her prepared remarks during a campaign stop in Walkerton, Ont., on Thursday, May 15, 2014.

Premier Kathleen Wynne may have been in Walkerton Thursday morning to announce her party’s support for the Walkerton Clean Water Centre, but inevitably she was asked about the contentious issues of wind turbines.

Wynne said the wind turbine placement process has improved since she took office.

“There needed to be a change in the way those wind turbines were sited,” she said. “I believe that it’s very important that communities have more input.”

Wynne noted since she was elected Liberal leader, there have been changes regarding the way turbine contracts are finalized.

“Communities must opportunity to have a say and have much more buy-in,” she said.

She also expressed regret for the way the Green Energy Act was implemented.

“If I could roll back the clock and we could have a better process from the beginning, I would do that,” Wynne said. “But I can’t do that. All I can is make sure that, going forward, we have a much better process in place and that communities are consulted.”

Wynne was in Walkerton at the 14th anniversary of the Walkerton E. coli outbreak.

Some opponents of Brockton’s involvement in the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s deep geological repository process have raised the spectre of another public health crisis if the municipality is selected.

While nuclear waste management is a federal jurisdiction, Wynne said she believes the same principles of community buy-in apply.

“The issues around nuclear waste . . . they need to be, again, done in consultation with communities and with all the safety precautions in place,” Wynne said.

“It’s another example of us . . . (needing to) consider all the consequences and work with the communities to make the best decisions possible.”

On the subject of nuclear, Wynne also took time to praise Bruce Power.

“We’re in a riding with an exemplary nuclear facility,” she said. “The Bruce workers have demonstrated over and over again what a fine organization they are.”

Speaking from prepared notes, Wynne said the promise by Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak to cut 100,000 public sector jobs would be more than double than the government jobs eliminated under the Mike Harris government in the 1990s.

The comparison of Hudak to Harris is similar to the ties drawn by her opponents to former premier Dalton McGuinty`s administration.

“I have been taking responsibility for a government I was part of and I have made changes based on decisions I believe were not the right decisions,” Wynne said. “If you talk about the siting of . . . gas plants or wind turbines, we have changed the rules based on lessons I have taken, my government has taken, from decisions that were made by the previous government.

“We have to learn lessons and governments have to make changes based on those lessons,” Wynne said.​

 

Global Warming Alarmists Hate This!

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Claim: ‘One Guy With A Marker Just Made The Global Warming Debate Completely Obsolete.’

Posted on May 15, 2014 by My granddaughter just sent me a link to a video that claims: “One Guy With A Marker Just Made The Global Warming Debate Completely Obsolete.”

I watched the video with interest. He starts off saying he has: “… An argument that leads to a  conclusion even the most ardent skeptic and most panicked activist can agree on. … No one I’ve show it to so far has been able to poke a hole in it. …”

 

(Source: http://www.upworthy.com/one-guy-with-a-marker-just-made-the-global-warming-debate-completely-obsolete-7?g=2&c=upw1)

GW Dichotomy

As the image from the video indicates, he divides the Global Warming debate into two dichotomies:

  • Global Climate Change (GCC) is “False” (Top Row) or “True” (Bottom Row), and
  • We take Action “Yes” (Column A) or “No” (Column B)

Here are the results he gives for his four boxes:

  1. GCC is False but we unnecessarily take Action. The result is a high “Cost” that results in a “Global Depression”.
  2. GCC is False and we take No Action. The result is a happy face.
  3. GCC is True and we take Action that stops GCC dead in its tracks. The result is a happy face.
  4. GCC is True and we take No Action. The result is “CATASTROPHES [in the] ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, SOCIETAL, ENVIRONMENTAL, [and] and HEALTH” areas.

He ends with the inevitable: “The only choice is Column A” – we must take Action!

“All or nothing”, “Camelot or Catastrophe” arguments have great emotional power in political discourse, where the (usually hidden) assumption is that some things are perfectly TRUE and others are perfectly FALSE. But the real world is mostly in shades of grey. He studiously avoids that complication, because, when shades of grey are considered, his argument, IMHO, falls apart.

Let us take a closer, more realistic look at his four boxes:

  1. GLOBAL DEPRESSION: This box is included to make it appear he is being “fair” to Skeptics. He assumes that taking Action to stop GCC will be so costly that, if it turns out to have been unnecessary, the result will be a “Global Depression”. Certainly, maximum environmental spending will damage the world-wide economy, but I doubt that type of spending, alone, will trigger a “Global Depression”. When we get to box #3 we will see that he doesn’t really think so either!
  2. HAPPY FACE: GCC is “False”, we take No Action, so all is well! But, is it? Does his “GCC” include NATURAL PROCESSES and CYCLES that have caused Global Warming (and Cooling), Floods (and Droughts), and Violent Storms (and Blessed Rain) prior to the advent of Humans on Earth, and before we Humans had the capability to affect the climate? Apparently not, else “GCC” could not be totally “False”.  Therefore, by “GCC” he is referring ONLY to the HUMAN-CAUSED variety, totally ignoring the evidence from the geological, ice-core, and historical records of NATURAL Global Climate Change and some Catastrophes.
  3. HAPPY FACE: This box is totally inconsistent with box #1! If Action to stop Human-Caused Global Warming is so costly as to cause a Global Depression in the first box, would it not also cause such a Global Depression in this box? So, why the Happy Face? Realistically, even if we in the US and other nations in the Developed World take maximum Action to reduce our CO2 emissions, it is totally unrealistic to expect those in the Developing World to do the same. Indeed, China, India, and other countries will continue to build power plants, nearly all of them coal-fired. CO2 levels are bound to continue their rapid increase for at least the coming several decades, no matter what we do.
  4. TOTAL CATASTROPHE: This box is filled with terrible consequences and is intended to scare us into taking maximum Action. He assumes the worst-case Global Warming of several degrees predicted by Climate Models despite the failure of those Climate Models to predict the past 17 years of absolutely no net Global Warming. (The most realistic prediction is continued moderate change in Global Temperatures, mostly NATURAL but some small part HUMAN-CAUSED. As standards of living continue to improve world-wide, populations will stabilize which will allow reasonable action to be taken to moderate CO2 emissions, and Human Civilization will ADAPT to inevitable Natural and Human-Caused Climate Change as we have throughout history.)

Bottom Line: This “One Guy With A Marker” DID NOT MAKE “The Global Warming Debate Completely Obsolete.” His failures of logic:

  • He assumes HUMAN-CAUSED Climate Change is the only kind we need to worry about, which flies in the face of the fact that most Global Climate Change has been and continues to be NATURAL, and not under Human control or influence.
  • He assumes costly Action to prevent GCC will cause a GLOBAL DEPRESSION (box #1) if GCC is “False”, but the same costly Action will cause a HAPPY FACE (box #3) if GCC is “True”. Box #3 contradicts box #1.
  • He ignores the fact that GCC models have way over-predicted Global Warming. For example, taking 1979 (when worldwide Satellite temperature data came available) as a starting point, the average of 102 Global Climate Models predicted warming of 0.9°C (1.5°F) by 2013. Actual warming from 1979 to 2013 has been less than a quarter of that, and there has been no net Global Warming since 1997.  During this time period, CO2 levels have continued their rapid rise. (See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/12/global-warming-is-real-but-not-a-big-deal-2/)
  • He assumes “All or Nothing at all” and “Camelot or Catastrophe” which is the characteristic of irresponsible EMOTIONAL argument. He ignores the shades of grey in-between. He brings POLITICAL rhetoric to what should be a rational SCIENTIFIC discussion.

Ira Glickstein

Donald Trump Knows Not to Invest In Wind Turbines or Areas Infested with them!

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Donald Trump vows investment if turbines scrapped

Donald Trump said he will make no further investment unless nearby wind turnbines are scrapped. Picture: PA

Donald Trump said he will make no further investment unless nearby wind turnbines are scrapped. Picture: PA

  • by JON HEBDITCH
 BILLIONAIRE tycoon Donald Trump made a flying visit to his Aberdeenshire golf course, but vowed not to invest any more money in it until a controversial turbine project was scrapped.

 

Trump, 67, said he was willing to restart work at the £750 million Menie Estate course if Aberdeen City Council chiefs “took the windfarm off the table”.

The US businessman touched down at Aberdeen International Airport yesterday morning before heading off to the links at the Menie Estate in the afternoon.

He was due to fly out to Dubai later to oversee another of his golf projects.

Trump has objected to the proposed 11-turbine development off Aberdeen Bay since it was first put forward in August last year, saying it will ruin the view for people playing on the Aberdeenshire course.

He axed plans for a luxury hotel and a second course at Menie Estate and vowed to never invest in the course again after the Scottish Government rejected his appeal against the turbine plan in February. His legal team are planning a fresh appeal.

He arrived in Ayrshire earlier this week to visit the £35.7 million Turnberry course he purchased last month.

But he said he stands by his decision not to invest any more in his resort at Menie Estate, near Balmedie, unless he wins his wind-turbine fight.

He said: “We far exceeded the promise we made to Scotland.

“We have delivered a very special golf course. People all over the world are talking about it and we are getting record bookings.

“I look forward to continuing the development – as soon as that windfarm is taken off the table.”

Vattenfall, the 75% stakeholder in the windfarm project, is looking to sell its share and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, which holds the remaining stake, last month handed over the running of the project to Aberdeen City Council.

Trump also plans to invest up to #36million in a golf course he has bought in the west of Ireland.

He visited Doonbeg Links, in Co Clare, before travelling to Turnberry.

The American tycoon said yesterday he was “sad” to see Scotland, where his mother was born, being “destroyed”.

He said: “Scotland is a beautiful country, but it has a death wish. Wind turbines are destroying the country.

“The council in Aberdeen should do its people a great favour and abandon this scheme, which is doomed to lose money.”

Wind Turbines are Destroying Scottish Seabirds!

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‘Protect Scottish seabirds from deadly wind farms’

The RSPB said species such as the puffin, kittiwake and gannet are increasingly at risk from off-shore wind farms. Picture: Jane Barlow

The RSPB said species such as the puffin, kittiwake and gannet are increasingly at risk from off-shore wind farms. Picture: Jane Barlow

  • by ILONA AMOS
 Key marine sites must be protected immediately in a bid to stop iconic seabirds vanishing from Scotland, according to a leading conservation charity.

Scotland is home to 24 internationally important seabird species. But the latest official figures show at least nine have been in steep decline for the past 18 years.

Now a new report from RSPB Scotland is calling for the Scottish Government to set out seven new Special Protection Areas (SPAs) to safeguard food supplies for threatened birds and reduce the impacts of offshore wind farms.

As the seas are increasingly being utilised for renewable energy developments, conservationists say guidance on sensitive areas is urgently needed to address a “fundamental lack of protection” for species such as the puffin and great skua.

The RSPB is also warning that the Scottish and UK governments risk failing to meet obligations under Scottish and European laws if “urgent action” is not taken to encourage their 
survival.

Stuart Housden, director of RSPB Scotland, said: “Scotland has a fantastic opportunity to show the world that we value our wildlife and natural environment.

“Unfortunately, this is not the case when it comes to our iconic seabirds, species for which Scotland in particular has a special responsibility to protect.”

He said the seven areas are just “a first step” in creating a full network needed to satisfy the requirements of EU and Scottish legislation.

“With numerous proposed wind farm developments ‘queuing up’ in the areas that overlap key feeding sites for birds, we cannot wait any longer,” he added.

The most dramatic declines have hit the arctic skua, arctic tern and black-legged kittiwake, which have seen numbers plummet by as much as 80 per cent in recent years. Experts fear the arctic skua may disappear from the UK within a decade.

Other species of concern include the northern gannet, European shag, common guillemot and European storm petrel.

Evidence shows changes in oceanography are affecting the food “web”, causing a scarcity of prey that impacts on breeding success.

But the survival of vulnerable populations can also be threatened by badly sited marine renewable schemes and invasive alien species, according to the report.

It suggests setting out protected areas at sea can boost their chances of survival.

The recommended areas were first identified in 2012 by the government’s statutory advisors, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, and are considered vital feeding areas used by many tens of thousands of Scotland’s four million seabirds.

The government has already laid down 33 SPA colony extension sites, but experts say most of the critical areas where breeding species feed at sea remain unprotected.

The report recommends the SPAs should include colony extensions and offshore feeding areas, as both are essential for the birds to thrive.

“Without protection of these areas, breeding colonies designated as terrestrial SPAs and Sites for Special Scientific Interest risk being little more than safe places to starve, and leave seabirds unprotected through the majority of their lifecycle,” the report states.

But a spokesman insisted the Scottish Government is committed to safeguarding the nation’s seabirds.

He said: “We are confident that completion of marine SPA designations will deliver adequate site protection for seabirds.

“We recently consulted on 33 Nature Conservation Marine Protected Areas (MPA) proposals, which will provide valuable protection for our marine environment, including seabirds, in 2013.

“Six of these would include national protection for black guillemot in the marine environment, while several of the other MPA proposals include protection for habitats or species such as sand eels that support seabirds.”

The initial SPAs include sandbanks off the Firth of Forth, an area of the Pentland Firth and the sea north of St Kilda, but RSPB Scotland is set to propose further sites in coming months.

Final decisions on the MPA proposals are expected later this year.